Do you find confusion when teaching latin AND a modern foreign language?

[ShelzNH]

I am starting French this year with my dd7 and ds10. I wanted to also do Prima Latina but am concerned about their being confusion learning two languages at a time. (Even though one of them isn't really for the purpose of speaking) Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Embassy]

I am starting French this year with my dd7 and ds10. I wanted to also do Prima Latina but am concerned about their being confusion learning two languages at a time. (Even though one of them isn't really for the purpose of speaking) Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

I am doing Koine Greek, Mandarin, Arabic, and French simultaneously with my boys. There has been no confusion so far. The languages are different enough so it would be difficult to confuse them. We are adding another language this year too. I would guess that learning the language would be slower if you are doing two than if you were doing one though.

[Tress]

Don't be afraid, it won't be confusing...and even if they do mix up a word or two....who cares, just laugh and keep going.

 

BTW, in the Netherlands all children start English, French (and most of the time German also) at 12yo..in the same week :D. And if your child goes to a gymnasium* they also add Latin and Greek at the same time. No one complains about being confused.

 

*Gymnasium and Atheneum, both together called VWO, are the tracks for kids going to university (about 10-15% of the students). Only Gymnasium teaches Latin and Greek.

[Ali in OR]

We've been doing Latin and Spanish for two years. My kids have never been confused; on the contrary we find it very interesting to learn Latin words and see how they were changed (or not) in Spanish and English. I would think you would have a similar experience with Latin and French. The only difficulty is finding enough time for language study--we'd like to add Greek this year, but don't know if we'll be able to fit in much more than learning the alphabet.

[Dmmetler]

For DD, no. She doesn't seem to have any trouble keeping English, Latin, Spanish, and Koine Greek straight, and loves the connections between languages.

 

For me, well...I tend to scramble my high school French and my learned due to living in a Spanish-Speaking area Spanish with my high school and college Latin and college Italian if I'm not careful, which sends DD into fits of near hysteria.

[Ester Maria]

Outside of the anglophone world, it's more of a norm than an exception to learn multiple foreign languages at school. What people who are teaching their children two or three languages on these boards are doing is, on a world scale, far from exceptional or unique - they're just doing what normally would have been done, but what the most often isn't done in a school setting in the anglophone world.

 

That being said, I hardly know anyone who has any type of cognitive problems while operating with one language just because there are other languages somewhere stored in their mind as well. There is nothing to worry about. If there is some kind of initial confusion, that's being solved by scheduling languages well, and making sure the child knows a bit about historical linguistics (how languages developed, in what relation Spanish is to Latin, etc.).

[Harriet Vane]

We've been doing Latin and Spanish for two years. My kids have never been confused; on the contrary we find it very interesting to learn Latin words and see how they were changed (or not) in Spanish and English. I would think you would have a similar experience with Latin and French. The only difficulty is finding enough time for language study--we'd like to add Greek this year, but don't know if we'll be able to fit in much more than learning the alphabet.

 

This has been my dd's experience doing both Spanish and Latin concurrently for four years.

[Laura Corin]

It might be an idea to start one language and then add in the other later - maybe after a year. We get occasional confusion between languages, but nothing serious; we study Mandarin, Latin and French.

 

Laura

[ShelzNH]

Thank you everyone! We are going to go for it... :)

[johnandtinagilbert]

Of my 3 doing Latin and Spanish last year, only the one who is gifted in language arts was okay. The other two (who are fine in LA, but prefer math) struggled, so we dropped Spanish. I hope they will complete Latin this year and next, then pick up Spanish in college and high school.

[elise1mds]

Definitely go for it! My DS did Song School Latin last year. This year we switched over to Minimus and have also started Le Francais Facile Jr. He's enjoying both, DD5 is picking up words from both, and neither are having confusion.

[JenneinCA]

We started Japanese school on Saturday and then my oldest started an online Latin course on Monday. So far there hasn't been any problems but it has only been a few days.

 

She says the different alphabets make it easier to keep them separate.

[nmoira]

DD the Elder does Spanish and Latin. Occasionally there's a bit of a mix-up with near-identical cognates -- for example, sometimes she'll say (v/b)ee-ya instead of wil-la for 'villa' in Latin and vice versa -- but it's more a cause for giggles than consternation. Otherwise it hasn't been an issue.

[JadeOrchidSong]

We do Latin and Mandarin, and of course since they are so vastly different, there is no confusion at all. However, I want to add French in the not so distant future. I would love to see them know both Latin and French and make the connection.

WEHOMESCHOOL, how do you schedule all the languages? Do you give each of them the same amount of attention or one is more important than the other?

I would love ideas of how to do three foreign languages simultaneously.

Thanks,

J

[Embassy]

WEHOMESCHOOL, how do you schedule all the languages? Do you give each of them the same amount of attention or one is more important than the other?

I would love ideas of how to do three foreign languages simultaneously.

Thanks,

J

 

This school year I am covering French, Arabic, Mandarin, Sinhala, and Koine Greek. We have added one language this year (Sinhala).

 

Anyway, I use a flexible time schedule so I don't actually schedule things out x times per week although I may write out a tentative x times per week or x minutes per week so I know approximately how much time to cover. I don't treat them all equally. If you look at my schedule I have Arabic and Mandarin as first priority with 40 hours each. French and Sinhala have second priority with 30 hours each. Koine Greek is the lowest priority with 15 hours. Progress in each language is slow because we do so many, but my kids are young and we have plenty of time to learn.

[SnegurochkaL]

Last year my daughter was doing French and Latin and had no troubles keeping them apart. Year earlier she tried French and Spanish and had a lot of confusion with it. She decided she liked French so much she wanted to use it all the time. We droped Spanish.

Earlier she had an introduction to Chinese/Japanese/Korean and could keep them apart:) French and Latin are so different!

 

I had problems learning Korean and Japanese at the same time. I would put a lot of Japanese words instead of Korean in conversation:(